Page 62 of Rising Tiger

He then grabbed the guy with the broken hand by the collar, twisted him out of his chair, and took him down hard to the ground.

Looking across the room, he saw that Vijay had things well in hand. Both Kumar and his remaining bodyguard were on the ground and the ex-cop was patting them down for weapons.

Harvath did the same with his two. Then, pulling the office door shut, he locked it so that no one would stumble upon the meeting that was about to get under way.

Vijay found a roll of duct tape and tossed it to Harvath. As the ex-cop kept the four men covered, Harvath slung his weapon and went about taping wrists behind backs, followed by ankles.

The man with the broken hand made a lot of noise, forcing Harvath to place a piece of tape across his mouth before finishing the job. He decided, just in case, to gag the others as well. All of them, that was, except for Kumar. They had a lot of questions for him and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to understand him with a piece of duct tape across his mouth.

When he was done, he set up a chair in the center of the room, yanked Kumar up from the floor, and placed him in it.

“Someone is in big fucking trouble,” the gangster stated. “Bigfucking trouble.”

Rahul Kumar couldn’t have been any taller than five foot four, maybe five foot four and a half on a good day with thick socks.

The man wasn’t filled with piss and vinegar; it was more like battery acid and snake venom. Flecks of spittle collected at the corners of his mouth as he raged. His eyes were wide with anger, showing their whites.

“I pay money, good fucking money, not to get raided,” he continued. “Not to have some thulla I’ve never seen before burst into my business and hold me at gunpoint. And with a fucking Gora no less! What the hell is this? I don’t even think you’re cops.”

“Clever, this one,” said Vijay, explaining the slang to Harvath. “Athullais a corrupt, incompetent cop.Gorameans whitey, or simply a white person. So, he could have called you worse.”

“I don’t doubt it,” replied Harvath.

“An American Gora?” the gangster exclaimed, reading Harvath’s accent. “Who the fuck are you?”

“Let me put it this way,” said Vijay, pointing at Harvath. “When this Gora shows up on your doorstep, it means that your day is going to get much, much worse.”

Kumar looked at Harvath and then back at the ex-cop. “What is it you want? What are you doing here?”

“Part of me wants to rent you better bodyguards and sell you some cameras,” Vijay responded, laying his shotgun on the desk. “It’s unfathomable to me that your competitors haven’t killed you yet and taken over your business. You don’t know the first thing about security.”

“Maybe I’ll hire you,” said Kumar. “Obviously paying off the local police isn’t doing me much good.”

“Sorry, Rahul. I don’t work for men like you. You have no honor.”

“Says the fake cop who, something tells me, isn’t here on behalf of the IPS. Who are you working for then? The Gora?”

Vijay stepped forward and grabbed the gangster by the throat. “I’m not here to answer your questions. You’re here to answermine. Is that clear?”

“Teri-maa-ka-bhosda,” Kumar responded.

The ex-cop cracked him with his opposite hand—the one with thesignet ring, catching the thug just beneath his left eye. “You bring my mother into this once more,” he warned, “and things are really going to get bad.”

“Bhenchod!” the main exclaimed.

Vijay hit him again, harder. “The same thing goes for my sister.”

Even from where he was standing, Harvath could see a nasty, blood-engorged welt swelling up on the man’s face. One more blow and Vijay was going to open Kumar up like an Indian piñata.

“Now, if we’re done talking about the women in my family,” the ex-cop stated, “maybe we can get down to business.”

Either because he had run out of insults or was wary of being struck again, Kumar remained silent.

“Good,” said Vijay. “Business it is. To whom did you sell Pinaki Ali’s motorbike?”

The gangster quickly looked away from him and then back. Not a good sign. He gave him another warning. “My friend, the Gora, is a human lie detector, but even I can see you’re trying to come up with some sort of story to tell me. Take my advice—don’t. If you lie, it’ll get even worse than if you start insulting my wife or my daughters. Do you understand?”

Kumar nodded.